


Exodus - Outtakes

by corvidae9



Series: Exodus [2]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Gen, Shepard's Hoodie, dog or not, hotels are weird, ridiculous outtakes, shower scenes am i right
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29926398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvidae9/pseuds/corvidae9
Summary: Scenes from the Exodus in-between. And just like all of our moments in between, some are nsfw.
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Series: Exodus [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2200836
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	1. Grunt’s Arrival on the Normandy

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a small pile of outtakes from Exodus. I didn't feel like they fit the tone of the fic for some reason or another, but I enjoyed them, and I hope you do, too.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grunt shows up on the Normandy just after Shepard gets back from shore leave. At an indecent hour. Shortly following a state of intoxication similar to the one that led to flying off of a hospital. He is... loud.

###

**“SHEPARD!”**

The voice was unmistakable, or would have been if Shepard hadn’t been in a partially hungover haze, half-buried under blankets, her pillow, and Garrus’ arm. All she managed was a fractious mumble.

**“BATTLEMASTERRRR!”**

“Before sunrise, he’s your son,” muttered Garrus, pulling the pillow off of Shepard and squashing it over his head. Shepard managed to crack one eye open just as the banging on the door began.

**“I HAVE RETURNED!!”**

“Apologies, Commander,” came EDI’s voice. “It would appear that Urdnot Grunt could not be stopped by non-lethal measures. Would you like to authorize such force?”

“No-- I’ve got this, EDI. Stand down.” Shepard groaned and rolled out of bed with some difficulty. “For fuck’s sake, Grunt. Please.” She pulled on her far-flung and miraculously-found underpants and a sports bra, one or both of which might have been inside out. 

“SHEPARD!” Grunt shouted excitedly. “I HAVE BEEN CRUSHING REAPER SPAWN FOR MONTHS.” 

“Grunt!” Shepard said as she punched the door panel. The door slid open revealing the large, excitable krogan on the other side. “It is five A--”

Her sentence was cut short as Grunt gathered her to his massive frame and squeezed, regardless of her state of undress. “WE’VE DONE GLORIOUS BATTLE, AND THERE ARE NO MORE LEFT FOR ANYONE ELSE. I AM KROGAAAN!” 

“Mmph!” Shepard patted his elbow in both a show of fondness and of tapping out. “OK. Good job, buddy.” She sniffed him and grimaced as he let her down. “...where did you find Ryncol on Earth?” Suddenly, the situation made much more sense. 

“WE CELEBRATED!”

“That’s great, Grunt. Now, keep it down,” growled Garrus from under his stolen pillow. “Some of us are no longer intoxicated.” 

“VAKARIAN!” Shepard made shushing sounds and hand gestures, but it was purely selfish. Grunt was after all only about a foot from her head. He made a comically contrite face at Shepard and tried again in the closest approximation of a stage whisper that a drunken krogan can muster. “He’s still in your bed! That’s good! Turians are scrawny but I met one planetside, and she did this thing with her--”

“OH-K, Well,” Shepard said while forcefully grabbing his forearm, hoping desperately to distract him. “Listen, why don’t you go sleep it off in your favorite cargo hold and we’ll talk about this in the morning?” Grunt focused on her, planting his giant, slightly scaly hands on either side of her head.

“I am what my Battlemaster has made me,” he said, his expression bleary, yet intent. “Point me.”

“Go.” Shepard pointed. “Sleep. We’ll talk later.”

“DONE!” he roared, releasing her, only to headbutt her in a fashion he no doubt thought was ‘gentle’, then staggered a few steps to her couch and collapsed on it. 

Grimacing and holding a hand to her forehead, Shepard said, “Grunt, no, that’s not--” Grunt was already snoring. “--what I meant.” Shepard could hear Garrus muttering into the bedding, but there was nothing left to be done about it. She gathered a spare blanket, tossed it over her blissfully oblivious krogan tank baby, and climbed back into bed. 

The usual pile of pillows on Garrus’ side of the bed parted to reveal a section of faceplates and one brilliant blue eye. 

“You’re really going to let him stay there?”

“ _‘Let’_? Did you see any of that?”

“Shepard. The children have their own bedrooms for a reason.”

“Are you going to carry him out?”

Garrus sighed. “I suppose not.”

“...besides, he’s so cu--”

The pillow came back down on her face before she could finish her thought, which was good, since she wouldn’t have been able to finish it with a straight face.


	2. The Team Shower Outtake (nsfw)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then there was the matter of that team shower in Chapter 6 (Shep/Garrus - nsfw)

With her shoulderblades and upper back pressed to the smooth surface of the shower in the captain’s cabin the only part of her body anchored somewhere that wasn’t Garrus, with his body holding hers up from a connection point that seemed lucky to be a relative universal between his species and hers, with her fingers scrabbling at his shoulders, stubby nails finding purchase with difficulty even after all this time, owing perhaps to the distraction of his mumbled stream of consciousness (her name, some vulgarities, some sweet promises, who the fuck knew anymore) or her nerve endings pulsating in tune with her racing heart but threatening to break away any moment, with her ankles locked around his hips, toes getting cold outside of the water and knee beginning to protest the rough treatment; with all of that, Shepard still had a second to realize that with her point of view was disorientingly too high up; an animal sense of danger, of being too far off of the ground, and she gasped harder than she had already been at that point. 

She shut her eyes and let her head loll back and be held up by the slippery tile as the water shut off thanks to the timer, one hand shifting to clench reflexively at the back of his neck, unable to focus on anything but the tension in her body that spiraled upwards, on a lurching tightrope that swung precariously with every thrust of his body, every shift of hers; the noises she made also belonged to that primal animal, pinned to a wall, spitted on the attention of a larger predator, begging for a release of any kind at this point. 

Her questing hand, unhappy with its location, slid around his face, and he tilted his head to catch it between his teeth, to bite down into the meat of her palm, a quick motion; not one intended to rend but to give outlet to the energy that had nowhere else to go. Still, Shepard hissed and in that moment felt it all snap; falling apart in tinkling shards of white noise just to come back together in a dull roar that centered around the very base of her body, the center where they were connected so thoroughly, especially now that her back arched further, her breasts smashed against his chest, occasionally scraping on the ridges of his plates. Her fingers settled back onto his shoulder and where they ended up be damned as she loosed a guttural shout that dissolved into a groan that lived on the edge of overstimulation, every exhalation thereafter a whimper that spoke of ‘too much but still welcome’. 

The large hand with too few digits that had been planted on the wall over her shoulder that matched the one wrapped around her ass came up off of the metal surface just a moment before crashing back down, as he pulled back, breaking the connection to keep from causing allergic reactions deep inside of her (do not ingest, indeed) because of course there had been no time for physical barriers; hell there had barely been time to shove clothes aside and turn on the water. It felt like that a lot, actually; there was an urgency almost every time, a sense of having to take this right now where they could, of having something go right, as though they were locked into the mere fleeting moments before anything could and might well go wrong. Vaguely, Shepard wondered if they would ever be able to just assume everything could be slow on the first round or if they would be drunk on each other forever and still worrying about when the next drink would come, even as she reached for him, stroking through his own shards of white noise and dull roars, or who knew what metaphors he held onto as he shook, mouth open, eyes shut, panting for every breath as he spilled over her hand and onto her thigh. 

He mumbled something and lowered her to the cold tile that made her wince, but she didn’t hear through the buzzing that had taken over her body; the adrenaline rush that suffused her cells as her breath began to even out. His hand was still planted well over her shoulder and he leaned in to nuzzle her face, the other hand shifting to wind around her waist and up her back, always willing to hold her up until her knee could warm up and do the job properly again. 

She murmured up at him about feelings and he responded in kind, then inquired over how she was feeling physically and how she was doing and whether she needed anything else, and should he turn the water back on quite yet, and she had to stop him with a kiss after because otherwise she’d have to explain just how perfect this moment was just the way it was, and that was a fool’s task if she’d ever heard one.


	3. The Shore Leave Outtake (part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But see, three wheels makes a bitchin' trike.

When Shepard had thought about the Earth, pitted and scarred, she hadn’t really taken in how much was changed on the surface. Maybe it was an artifact of having been raised offplanet, but Earth still seemed magical; huge and dirty and broken, certainly, but also wondrous and filled with the history of her people for better or worse. She also had underestimated the desire of a people to cling to normalcy. With the ground declared 95% clear, there were construction crews everywhere; trucks hauling rubble and crews shouting to one another it seemed on every block, beginning with those that had anything of a block left to salvage and radiating out from there. 

Three months hadn’t been nearly enough to clear it all, but it had been enough to get main city centers up and running; to get stores and essential businesses open to some extent, to expand hospitals and community centers, to house the displaced and make space to rehabilitate the injured. 

Obviously, that meant that there were bars in every Clear Zone; those were the first essential services restored after utilities and food service, because frankly even if you were alive, it was currently depressing as hell. And of course, Liara had found the loudest in the shadow of an Alliance outpost just outside of DC, but the one with the quietest alcoves, one that had booze and even snacks, where the patrons were just glad to be alive and only distantly concerned about propriety or skill. It was startlingly apocalyptic and still wildly familiar. 

Shepard’s hoodie was open far enough to begin slipping down one arm at this point, a concession to the warmth that suffused her body after the five or six (or seven?) drinks that she’d been plied with free of charge in the just-under-three hours since they’d arrived. She was sitting between Garrus and Liara in the wide booth that had become theirs after Liara did some talking and some name-dropping. His arm around the back of the booth over her shoulders was a welcome weight and a delightful way to pretend that everything was just fine; that it was just an unremarkable Friday night out at the clubs with friends, having drinks and blending in. Tali… was somewhere in the undulating crowd, shaking her hips and flirting outrageously with everyone in her general vicinity just by existing, in the way of all tipsy, self-assured women on a dancefloor since the dawn of dancefloors.

“You’re welcome to come with us, you know,” said Shepard, seemingly apropos of nothing into the lull that had followed all of the preliminary catching up and drinking.

“In many ways, I wish I could,” said Liara with a rueful smile, stirring absently at the bright green drink in her glass. “But I’ve got to solidify my network, especially after all of the damage to the relays and--” she sighed. “Everyone in it. I don’t know if most of my contacts are alive or dead. I can do the most good if my eyes and ears are back online as much as possible. And then there’s this collaboration with Javik--”

Shepard raised an eyebrow, but the line of inquiry was interrupted. 

“Shepard? _THE_ Commander Shepard, oh shit, they were not kidding it really is her,” came a voice from the outside her immediate bubble, and Shepard looked up to find three goggling Alliance soldiers at the edge of her booth. The speaker had a hand clenched on his friend’s shoulder, a beer in the other, his face an entire show of shock and awe. “Is it really you?”

“Hey,” she said with the barest wave, forcing herself to stay in casual mode. “In the flesh. Just barely, though.”

“Can we uh--” said the friend whose shoulder was being clenched. “Would you take a picture with us?”

Garrus shifted and she set a hand on his knee to keep him from trying to answer. 

“Sure thing,” she said, leaning forward into their camera range. They immediately got in close and lifted their comms for selfies, and there was a host of clicking and shutter noises that no camera had made on Earth in at least a hundred years. After several, to a man, they all stopped gesturing and began typing.

“Oh my god,” murmured the third soldier. “No one’s gonna believe this.”

“Perhaps,” said Liara with a head tilt. “You would be so kind as to wait to post those? We’d… prefer not to be mobbed.”

“Oh,” he said, “Yee-eah. Sure. Sure thing."

Liara’s smile wavered; from his tone, she assumed he’d already posted it to a network somewhere. She could theoretically take it down with just a few keystrokes, but--

“Guys! GUYS!” Tali ran breathlessly up to the table, took a huge swig from the straw in the blue-labeled drink, and laughed. “You have to come dance. The DJ is so good.” She swiveled and waved at the soldiers. “Hiiii!” Another sip. 

“Oh, no--” Liara shook her head. “It’s too early for that.”

“I’m afraid the way I understand this situation, you have no choice,” Garrus said with a shrug. “It’s in the Girl Code.”

“It’s true,” said Tali, hipchecking the nearest soldier who was still more goggling than smiling. “You can’t ignore the summons.”

Shepard though, gamely stood and tossed her hoodie onto the seat. “Let’s go.”

“Yesss!” said Tali, hopping up once as Shepard slithered over Garrus’s lap to exit the booth, landing next to her with a flourish. Tali took her hand, as well as that of the soldier she’d hipchecked and started back. 

“You’re going to leave them alone out there?” Garrus asked Liara with a grin.

“Hmm,” Liara said with an appraising nod, obviously amused. “Shepard won’t hurt anyone with her flailing and Tali knows what she’s doing. They’re probably alright.” 

The other two soldiers looked at each other, wide-eyed and started in the direction of Tali’s dragging. 

“You on the other hand--” said Liara, still overly amused, “--may want to join them.” 

Garrus swore good-naturedly and stood; I mean, he could barely stand to not watch Shepard all the damn time, he couldn’t actually blame them. “Err. The DJ is rather good,” he said as he stood. “Gentlemen,” he said in the direction of the two soldiers before they got too far. “I don’t suppose you’d hold Shepard’s table for a minute? Thanks.” He held his hand out to Liara, who offered him an eyeroll that engaged the tilt of her head and went all the way to her shoulders before she took it. 

“You’re ridiculous,” Liara shouted over the music as they came closer to where Tali and Shepard were… well. Tali was definitely dancing, half with the soldier and half with Shepard, who was being Shepard. Enthusiastically, though, and with a smile that lit up a radius around her such that Garrus hadn’t noticed when he let go of Liara and got up in Shepard’s face instead. 

“Wow, yes. She still does that,” said Liara, but it was drowned out as Tali cheered.

“Garrus!” Shepard joined the cheer, smiling, hands out to him. “Funny meeting you here!”

“Hi,” he said as he took one of those hands, tugged it in, and then gave it a push to spin her back out, hoping she recognized the signal. She did, and let him twirl her back with little effort. At the inward limit of the twirl, her back hit his chest with an ‘oof’ and a giggle, and he started swaying, taking her with him because spirits knew she had no idea where the beat went and what it did when it got there.

“You came to rescue me from my own rhythmic limitations?” she said, snaking a hand up to the side of his face. “That’s so romantic.”

“I am after all the incurable romantic here, ma’am,” he rumbled. “It’s my job.”

“They were following me, weren’t they?” she asked, as she tilted her hand and let it come down in what was a respectably danceworthy effort out of Shepard. 

“Yep,” he agreed. He put a hand on her hip and shoved it in time with the music. “I really couldn’t blame them, though.”

“Where’d they go?” she said, sparing a look around his arm.

“They’re currently guarding your table,” he said with audible amusement. She turned to face him, grinning. 

“Aww. Thanks. You shouldn’t have,” she said, reaching up onto her toes as he leaned in, closing her eyes in anticipation of her skin on his in 3...2…

“Oh, no-- break that up,” said Tali, tugging on Shepard’s arm. “You have all night to work that out, and I am not at all jealous, but right now we are dancing.” Shepard laughed hard and let Tali tug her away into the haphazard circle she’d built of herself, Liara, and the goggling marine. “Dancing with Liara, who we love, and miss, right? And this guy--”

“Ernie,” said the guy, barely audible, his eyes darting from Tali to Shepard and back.

“Thank you-- and Ernie-- who is so excited to dance with us,” shouted Tali. 

“So excited,” the guy said, taking the cue and shouting back.

“And Garrus!” shouted Tali. “He knows this DJ is amazing, right?” 

“So excited,” echoed Garrus. 

“We maybe should have watched the number of ‘emergency induction ports’ she got her hands on,” Garrus leaned to mutter in Shepard’s ear, and she slapped him off with a grin. 

Shepard could hear Liara responding, and she realized that she really did miss having her nearby, viscerally actually-- way down in her reconstructed bones-- but then Tali was shouting about drinks and there was more dancing and she was just happy to have lived long enough to get here. 

Which lasted until an unspecified time later when the DJ cut in over the speaker to announce that the club was thrilled to have Commander Shepard in the house, and the crowd seemed to close in a little more, and Liara declared it time to go. Hoodie in hand, Shepard was glad to follow.


	4. The Shore Leave Outtake (part 2) (nsfw-ish)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hotels are weird. And exhausting. Especially after ~~one~~ four too many of those green drinks and a lot of. Um. Well. A lot of _liaising_.

###

Hotels are weird. 

Imagine that you live somewhere, and you suddenly decide that you need to be somewhere else-- ostensibly, somewhere that is not your comfortable home-- so you go temporarily live in a tiny version of that home without your stuff, and you pay for the privilege. Perhaps Shepard had the wrong idea of it since her home had been barracks or a ship for so long before Cerberus that the idea of having a home where you could stretch out on a bed that fit more than one, with a window and a blanket and more than one pillow like a normal human, only to leave it to sleep in a pale imitation seemed crazy. 

Of course, once Shepard had the SR2, the question was on the table again. She wasn’t originally built as a military ship, technically, so the captain’s cabin was out-of-control crazy plush. No one on a warship should probably have a queen-sized bed, a fish tank, and display cases in one stateroom. Shepard did, though. 

So, even though at this moment, she was able to sprawl on a bed that was admittedly larger and even plusher than her usual bed, she missed the curious quality of light that came from the fishtank wall, and the sounds that came from living on a ship. The hotel window was also only showing her a lot of destruction she’d already seen from fairly up close, and so the drapes were pulled tight.

You know what was nice though? Homes came with expectations. Hotels had really none, other than to not destroy your room (and honestly Shepard could probably get away with that too if she were so inclined). When did you sleep? Wake? Dress? Have noisy sex that banged headboards into walls and cracked a table (accidentally) (they’d been drinking)(ok, maybe a little destruction but STILL) and maybe spilled a little (a lot of) water out of a jacuzzi tub? No one was going to ask why she’d filled a jacuzzi tub at 0300. No one cared. No one was going to call her and wonder why she wasn’t reporting in. No one was going to call and ask what they should do about x, y, and oh-my-god z. 

No one was going to harass her about doing something about the Reapers, not even her own subconscious. Because those fuckers were gone like last year’s dancetime mega-ska.

“Shepard,” came the voice that made her melt, and you know what? That was ok right now. She wasn’t in charge of anything but herself, she could just be a melty, naked, scarred woman who might have perhaps had a few too many of those damned green drinks Liara liked and was maybe half-draped over the owner of said voice, the edge of a sheet between her nipples and his rough, plate-y skin the only concession to chafing issues. She didn’t have to be the baddest badass right now (but she was always that, let’s also be fair). 

“Hrm?” she said, tired, and tipsy, and shagged out, and still a little _damp_ because who uses towels properly at 0330? 

“Shepard if you’ve killed me now, I will die a happy man,” said the voice, and Shepard giggled crookedly. Had she mentioned ‘achy in the nether regions’ because the last time she’d had a workout like this, she’d thought she was destined to die very shortly, and therefore, there was no surface of her cabin that shouldn’t also see action with a man for whom she’d frankly been thirsty for too long before it happened. She'd also not been recently run over by a space station. “I’ll be pissed because I’m dead, and can’t do it again, but...” he trailed off with an audible shrug and she patted his side.

“I can’t move my leg.” The leg she currently had thrown over his. “If I could, I would move, I promise. But you’re stuck right now.” She wouldn’t. She was damned comfortable on this pile of alien space boyfriend. Maybe it was weird, but nothing about her was normal, anyway. Who comes back from the dead, anyway? Weirdos, that’s who.

“What?” he said, half-sitting up in alarm and then looking like he immediately regretted it.

“Oof,” Shepard said, as she tumbled back onto the bed. His chest was higher up than might have allowed her to stay on in such an action; it was a thing she was still getting used to.

“Are you okay?” he asked earnestly if a little bleary, patting her side and then peering intently, trying to find her eyes. “Let me see your leg-- do you want me to massage it?” Shepard pressed her face to the bed just below his arm and laughed. “...you were lying, weren’t you?”

“Yep,” she said, muffled from the sheets. “You can still rub it though. I still have a little bit of skin there.” Unlike, say, the inside of her thighs, which she was going to be mightily sorry for in the morning, but only marginally sorry for by lunch. Wooo cybernetics!

“You,” he said, turning the attempted peer into a nuzzle that was more of an experimental poke. “Fiend.” His hand splayed on her ribcage and he leaned in. This time she did flinch with a hard inhale. “Shit,” he said. He unfortunately knew that sound. “Sorry,” he said as he readjusted his hand to plant behind her instead and rubbing his face on her throat and shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said, not that she wasn’t going to arch her neck to make the most of the apology. “I’m a little worn out,” she said with a smile, her fingers idly petting his fringe. “And what you are doing right now does not make me want to _rest_.”

“Should I stop?” he asked. And damn. The answer was definitely ‘yes’ because it was coming up on 0430 and she’d told Liara that they could absolutely make brunch at 1100 and she was at death’s door once again, but this was a hotel, right? There were no rules here. Maybe she still could. 

“I mean,” she said, running the inside of her supposedly hurt knee along his hip. “Let’s talk.”

“Okay, well. You rest,” he said, aiming the kisses lower, down her sternum and making special stops at particular ribs that were his favorites, and at her belly, stopping for a visit with her hipbones on his way to his ultimate destination. “I’ll talk.”


	5. The Dog or Not Outtake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the middle of chapter 8, in which Ashley offers to get drunk and watch _Dog or Not_ with Shepard as an anti-nightmare strategy. Team Shep joins in, and Shepard finally gets some sleep. (Props to tumblr user lesbianshepard for starting the whole _Dog or Not_ head canon, btw)

“How is that not a dog?” Garrus asked, waving the hand not holding a beer in an incredulous point towards the big vid screen, careful that no drops went flying onto Shepard’s head, which was currently snoring softly on the left side of his lap, her hair splashed heedlessly over his thigh. Ashley barked a laugh, practically snorting into her nearly-empty highball glass. 

“Shhh--” Tali shushed her, ineffectually leaning over to shield Shepard’s head from her spot between Garrus and Ashley. “Sh-Shepard needs to sleep!”

“It’s a fossa,” hiccuped Ashley, trying to be quiet. “Dogs aren’t shaped like that! It’s like… a giant weasel.”

“Come on, that’s gotta be a joke,” said Garrus, unconvinced, but still keeping his voice down. “What the hell is wrong with Earth fauna?”

“Looks like a good hunter,” said Grunt, sitting on the floor in front of the lounge at Shepard’s knees, pointing at the screen. “I like its teeth,” as the narrator began explaining the animal over a montage of photos and video of the little creature.

“Stupid show,” grumbled Garrus. He set his now-empty beer bottle aside. It was only the third? of a long evening, but he’d taken it upon himself to be the sober sister as it were, and he figured he was probably done at this point anyway. “Another episode?”

“What? No. It’s so late. You should--” Tali said, gesturing sloppily at Shepard, “--carry her upstairs and put her to bed.” She turned and mumbled at Ashley in a terrible stage whisper, “It is so friggin cute when he does that, honestly. Why can’t anyone do that for me? If I was Shepard, I’d make him carry me everywhere.” Ashley shrugged dutifully and drank to it.

“Are you kidding?” Garrus asked, pretty much ignoring the entire ‘whispered’ addendum. “This is the best she’s slept all week. I will sit right here and watch this damned show all night if that’s what it takes.” 

Tali tilted her head at him and cooed, “Awww,” at the same time as Ashley did, not that the latter would have admitted it. 

Garrus muttered and shoved Tali’s arm, and she laughed as she fell against Ashley’s shoulder.

“Pfft. Bosh’tet,” Tali giggled, “I’m not going anywhere either, then. And look! We’re-- we’re only in season four.”

Garrus ducked his head to get Ashley’s attention, who waved him off with a “Pfft,” too. “Hit that shit. I’m not going anywhere.” Grunt shrugged assent and leaned back, cradling his drink against his chest.

Grinning hard, Garrus hit the remote to start the next episode, set it aside, and set his hand lightly on Shepard’s ribcage, always grateful for the opportunity to feel her breathe.


End file.
